From: CENDO RICHARD To: Multiple recipients of list GLB-NEWS Subject: GAYS MAY BE PRONE TO PEDOPHILIA, POST SAYS [Editor's note: although posting this on glb-news is contrary to my agreement not to post GLAIL press releases here, I figured that this fully labeled press release has a lot more to do with the Denver Post, rather than with GLAIL, and would therefore not upset those who disagree with some of GLAIL's positions -- Rick] ***PRESS RELEASE*** contact: Rick Cendo GLAIL 303-440-5055 DENVER POST SAYS GAYS MAY BE PRONE TO PEDOPHILIA, MAY NOT BE SUBJECT TO VIOLENCE --GLAIL urges EVERYONE to call 303-820-1331 and complain about AL KNIGHT-- DENVER, CO, October 16, 1994 -- Gays and Lesbians Against Immoral Lifestyles urges all gay and lesbian people around the country to call the Denver Post at 303-820-1331 and politely but strongly complain to Editorial Page Editor Chuck Green about an anti-gay article written in Sunday's paper by Denver Post Perspective Editor Al Knight. GLAIL further urges gay and lesbian Coloradans to complain about the article and about Knight to at least one Denver Post advertiser. Knight is not an opinion columnist -- he is an editor of the Denver Post and his job is to provide in-depth "perspective" for readers. Knight is a long-time supporter of Amendment 2 and has routinely attacked the Colorado Supreme Court and Denver Judge Jefferey Bayless for opposing Amendment 2. In his Sunday article, however, Knight goes further: Singling out for ridicule Federal Judge Arthur Spiegel and his decision invalidating Cincinatti's Issue 3, Knight lists some of Judge Spiegel's findings of fact and claims that they are not facts at all. Among Spiegel's findings that Knight lists and then disputes are the following: -- There is no correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia. -- Gays, lesbians and bisexuals are often the target of violence by heterosexuals due to their sexual orientation. "Even a casual examination of these 'facts,'" Knight writes, "shows that they are not so much facts as assertions. You can get a good fistfight going among academics over each and every one of them." Last April, Knight ridiculed and attacked a study by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and by Colorado's gay and lesbian community center that showed an increase in anti-gay violence. When the director of the local Anti-Violence Project, Greg Rowley, wrote a "letter the editor" to the Post challenging Knight's distortions, Knight personally altered Rowley's letter -- by both deleting and ADDING words to the letter. Rowley said Knight's changes altered the meaning of his letter. Rowley was quoted in the gay press at the time as saying, "Amazingly, Knight personally twisted our words so that -- instead of opposing his anti-gay statement -- we were actually supporting it. They call this journalism?" Post Editorial Page Editor Chuck Green admitted that Knight added words to Rowley's letter that Rowley had never written (see "Writer Accuses Post of Distorting Letter, "Preferred Stock," April 20-May3, 1994). No correction or apology by the Post, however, was ever issued. Within the last two years, Knight has also asserted that, unlike blacks, gays have never been the subjects of "state-sponsored discrimination." (Knight was given documentation showing that the Federal government until 1974 banned all homosexuals from all government jobs, but Knight never corrected his error) Knight also sought to associate gays with pedophiles in a recent article attacking the D.C. Court of Appeals for its ruling against the anti-gay military ban. In the article, Knight said that if the military cannot ban gays from service by presuming that their orientation will lead to illegal homosexual conduct in the military, then child care centers will not be able to ban admitted pedophiles from employment by presuming that their orientation will lead to molesting children. In a phone conversation with GLAIL President Rick Cendo, shortly after the publication of Knight's pro-ban article, Knight admitted that he had unfairly associated gays and pedophiles. However, Knight neither issued a correction nor an apology, nor did he allow publication of a "letter to the editor" by Cendo disputing Knight's association of gays and pedophiles. (In addition to serving as Perspective Editor, Knight controls to the letters to the editor section of the Post.) Finally, in August, Knight published a "letter to the editor" which flatly stated, as a matter of fact, that the gay-sponsored protest to Coach McCartney's Promise Keepers meeting was organized by "pedophiles, homosexuals and (heaven help us) a politician." While Knight was on vacation, Post Editorial Editor Chuck Green allowed publication of a letter by GLAIL President Rick Cendo, who was also a protest organizer, asserting that no pedophiles were involved in organizing the protest. "This is not a case of some guy who is unfamiliar with the facts," said GLAIL president Rick Cendo. "Al Knight has been given the studies; he's been spoken to by many gay and lesbians readers over several years, including me; it's just that he doesn't care about the truth. It's that simple," Cendo said. "Al Knight is paid to be an objective Perspective Editor, but Al Knight has an agenda. Al Knight's agenda is to codify second-class citizenship for gay men and lesbians, and he hopes to accomplish this with an all-too-familiar game plan: 1.) continually and relentlessly associate gays with pedophiles and imply that gays are prone to pedophilia. 2.) continually and relentlessly deny that gays are subject to discrimination or violence on account of our sexual orientation." "Al Knight has demonstrated over and over again that he is not a journalist; he is a skillful, calculating liar, and he knows he's a liar," Cendo said. "If Al Knight wants to be a propaganda writer for Colorado For Family Values, then his articles should be properly labeled as propaganda rather than news analysis, and CFV, not the Post, should be paying his salary," Cendo said. "Until that happens, either Al Knight should start acting like a journalist and have some respect for the truth, or the Denver Post and Chuck Green should start acting like a newspaper and editorial page editor, respectively, and get rid of Al Knight," Cendo said.